New Metaphors for New Understandings: Ontological Questions about Developing Grounded Theories in Engineering Education

Abstract

Abstract New Metaphors for New Understandings: Grounded Theories on Gendered Academic CulturesRecent engineering education scholarship has demonstrated an interest in broadening the scopeof the field in multiple ways, including the populations studied, issues addressed, and approachesemployed. Specifically, engineering education researchers have emphasized the need to focus onfaculty and to incorporate new perspectives into the field, particularly by focusing ondepartments and institutions. In line with those objectives and trends, this paper takes a groundedtheory approach focused on metaphors to examine one understudied aspect of faculty diversityand underrepresentation, specifically the climate surrounding tenure and promotion. Given thegrowing interest in research on faculty and institutions and broadening methodological diversity,and given the persistent underrepresentation of female faculty, the aims of this article arethreefold: 1) to identify how female faculty experience the tenure and promotion process, 2) todemonstrate how new metaphors can contribute to grounded theory development to produce newunderstandings of underrepresentation in academia, and 3) to identify challenges of introducinggrounded theories via metaphors in engineering education research.Metaphors structure thought and action in research as well as in everyday life. Of significance tothis analysis, is that metaphors are particularly central to the development and changing oftheories. Metaphors are rich and complex in ways that increase the theoretical significance ofdata. More specifically, in social science research, metaphors can structure research and dataanalysis in several ways. They are pattern-making devices that situate or locate patterns withintheir larger social contexts; they are decentering devices that require moving from an inferentialto an analytical level; and they connect findings to theory. Therefore, the metaphors mobilized inengineering education research warrant attention as they are of significance to the developmentof theory as well as methods. Based on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 27 femalefaculty members in engineering, technology, and science fields at a large, public researchuniversity, this paper focuses on their experiences with the tenure and promotion process. Thehigh level of ambiguity surrounding tenure and promotion emerged as the leading theme. We usethat finding to demonstrate why new metaphors are needed to better understand the genderedfacets of academic careers through the creation of new (grounded) theories. This paper istherefore both empirical and methodological, contributing equally to knowledge about femaleacademics’ career pathways as well as knowledge about research methodologies in engineeringeducation more broadly. The paper concludes with discussions of gendered implications of theambiguity surrounding tenure and promotion, and current challenges of advancing groundedtheories via metaphors.